


Inktober Drawings feat. Artemis Entreri (and sometimes Jarlaxle)

by sno4wy



Category: Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fanart, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Inktober, Inktober 2018, M/M, Slice of Life, giant chicken, jartemis, lava jumping, merman au, roasted nuts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-02 15:58:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 54
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16308242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sno4wy/pseuds/sno4wy
Summary: Digital drawings for the prompts of Inktober 2018 centered around Artemis Entreri, with the not-so-occasional appearance of Jarlaxle.  I'm planning at least one piece that features other characters but since this is an ongoing work in progress, I'm not sure how everything will turn out at the end. Most of them are light-hearted, but some do get very dark.





	1. Poisonous

**Author's Note:**

> For more art and other goodies related to Artemis Entreri, check out my blog! http://artemis-entreri.tumblr.com
> 
> And come hang out with other Entreri (& Jarlaxle) fans on Discord: https://discord.gg/CF5zBc7

**Inktober 2018, Day 1: Poisonous**  

_Milking the venom from the deadly vipers, even with the thick gloves he wore, was not an enviable task._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When it comes to ink/emulating the ink style digitally, I feel like my hands are made of feet. Not replaced by, because that would still be more dexterous; just completely replaced by multiple feet (you're welcome for that awful mental imagery :P). I’ve never had much interest in Inktober because I seriously have zero clue on how to approach the medium. This year, I made the mistake of looking at the Inktober 2018 prompts and happened to think of pre-teen Artemis having to milk the Thesali vipers for the first prompt, thus beginning my butchering of Inktober and all that it stands for. >_>
> 
> I am glad that I did though, since I feel like I'm beginning to get the hang of it, although not in this piece or the next one. XD Another benefit came from doing this exercise: In the process of researching how to milk snakes, I learned that it’s actually not a good idea to wear gloves while doing so because it makes handling the slippery reptiles more difficult, but of course Bob has Artemis wearing gloves, and thick ones yet. =_=


	2. Tranquil

**Inktober 2018, Day 2: Tranquil**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled a lot with this one. I had the concept I wanted to do but didn't know how to apply the whole Inktober thing to it. In the end I copped out and approached it more like a (bad) black and white digital painting. *facepalm* 
> 
> I don't really like how it turned out because I feel like the whole thing is inharmonious and all over the place, but at least it gets better from here on out.


	3. Roasted

**Inktober 2018, Day 3: Roasted**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deez nuts ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> I've never understood what that meme meant and this is my first time using it, but it feels appropriate. XD


	4. Chicken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A biracial gay couple astride a giant chicken.

**Inktober 2018, Day 5: Chicken**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Words for the chapter summary are not by me but I love them. XD
> 
> I skipped day 4, and will be skipping even more. I started slowing down from doing one drawing a day by this point. :<


	5. Exhausted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: suicide, self-harm. 
> 
> Things got a lot darker with this prompt.

**Inktober 2018, Day 7: Exhausted**

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depression is exhausting, and the most tiring aspect of it is having to wake up each day and realize it's still there, that it's not going away, and that it's probably never going away. Throw PTSD in there and your nights become reruns of the worst episodes of your life. You're a prisoner of your own condition, and there's no way to escape from that, so you hold on to the concept of physical freedom so dearly because it's the only type of freedom you have.
> 
> I don't think Salvatore understands mental illnesses enough to realize that Artemis would almost certainly suffer from PTSD and depression, but at least he happened to be correct when he had Barrabus attempt to kill himself not once, but multiple times. I think that to the average reader (e.g. belonging to the unfortunately large sector of society that still stigmatizes if not outright deny the existence of mental illness), this sort of thing might seem emo and melodramatic, and I suspect that Salvatore was going for something over-the-top with it. But Artemis' repeated suicide attempts is something that makes so much sense to me, it resonates so centrally with me that this guy with amazing levels of willpower, who has perfected self-discipline to the point of being able to fight his depressions and traumas to the point of scorning the thought of suicide, would turn to it when his only type of freedom is taken away. 
> 
> I think that a lot of people misunderstand why Artemis is so averse to going to Menzoberranzan after his stay there. What he'd experienced in the City of Spiders was intolerable, not primarily because everyone else was like him, not primarily because they treated him as a lesser creature, and not even primarily because he was sexually exploited. All of those certainly were factors, but to my understanding, the thought of being in Menzoberranzan is grossly intolerable to Artemis because he'd been a prisoner there. Menzoberranzan and the drow took away the last remaining bit of freedom accessible to him, just had Tosso had, just as Alegni does, leaving him with nothing except escaping life itself.
> 
> Artemis is a very old man by human standards during his enslavement by the Netherese. While elven lifespans make his hundred years seem trivial, to the human psyche, a century is a long time, and I can't see how he wouldn't feel old and tired in at least some way. His life hasn't gotten much easier with age and Barrabus is not the young Artemis Entreri whose ambition still burned brightly. When even the ability to escape through terminating his own life is taken away from him, it's no wonder he couldn't fully accept it. It's no wonder that he tried to kill himself over and over, how could he viscerally get that even something so basic is denied to him.


	6. Whale

**Inktober 2018, Day 12: Whale**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have an explanation for this piece. The prompt was "whale" and I like merfolk, so I decided to do a Jartemis merman AU kinda thingy.


	7. Angular

**Inktober 2018, Day 16: Angular**

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being my final Inktober piece for the year. I was originally planning on going back and doing all the prompts but I changed my mind.
> 
> I started this piece because I wanted to do something simple, to focus on his face and those gorgeous angular features of his. The work that I had to put into it made it anything but simple for me however, and it's really a lucky coincidence that the foreground and the background both fit the prompt's theme. The background is his cloak clasp, as designed by Todd Lockwood. I'd originally started doing a really complex Moorish Arch for the background to allude to his Calishite heritage, but after sinking 5 hours into that design and not making much progress, it occurred to me that the cloak clasp befits him much better (and was easier to do >_>). 
> 
> This is one of the few pieces that I liked enough to sign. :P


End file.
